Paul Craig Roberts: What This Election Is Really About

I never cease to be amazed at the insouciance of Americans. Readers send me emails asking why I ever supported Trump when he was the Establishment’s candidate. If Trump was the Establishment’s candidate, why has the Establishment spent two years trying to destroy him?

The failure to put two and two together is extraordinary. Trump declared war on the Establishment throughout the presidential campaign and in his inaugural address.

As I wrote at the time, Trump vastly over-estimates the power of the president. He expected the Establishment, like his employees, to jump to his will, and he did not know Washington or who to appoint to support his goals. He has been totally defeated in his intention to normalize relations with Russia. Instead, we are faced with both Russia and China preparing for war.

In other words, the same outcome that Hillary would have achieved.

Trump has been so harassed by the Establishment that he is having trouble thinking straight. He was elected by “the deplorables” as the first non-Establishment candidate since when? You have to go back in history to find one. Perhaps Andrew Jackson. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were not the choice of the Democratic and Republican establishments, and the ruling establishments moved quickly to constrain both presidencies. The Democratic Establishment framed and removed both Carter’s budget director and chief of staff, depriving Carter of the kind of commitment he needed for his agenda. The Bush people that the Republican Establishment insisted be put in positions of power in the Reagan administration succeeded in blunting his reformist economic program and his determination to end the cold war. I fought both battles for Reagan, and I still have the bruises.

Trump is an outsider elected by “the deplorables” whose middle class jobs were offshored by America’s global corporations for the benefit only of the executives and large shareholders. A few people sold out the American middle class, which is shrinking away.

In the rest of the world, Trump’s true allies are the presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the former president of Ecuador, and the former president of Honduras, who was overthrown by “America’s First Black President,” the consequences of which are the caravan moving toward the US border.